Barack Obama's Stealth Socialism

[Plane]

If you are pretty ready with a million you can buy a minute of Rush Endorsement for your steak house , but whith what sort of coin can you buy an audience for Rush?
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I don't bother to listen to Franken, because I prefer to reach my opinions from scatch, with the facts. I so not need anyone to pre-chew my food.

Ok but as a church goer I am more of a sceptic than you are.

Please point out the evidence that there might be that the Ogliarchy pays a dime to Rush Limbaugh , or that Rush Limbaugh produces an audience with money spent.

Al Frankens failure is a demonstration that it cannot work backwards, tell the audience what they want to hear and you have an audience, tell them smething they are not interested in and you have a lot of sleepers. Nobody makes me tune in NPR I like NPR and listen to it often as a result, People who do not like Rush Limbaugh do not listen to him , they just act as if they really know what he is talking about .

[Xavier_Onassis]

Please point out the evidence that there might be that the Ogliarchy pays a dime to Rush Limbaugh , or that Rush Limbaugh produces an audience with money spent.
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Of course they don't make their records public. However, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is not likely to be a Bird of Paradise.  Clear Channel is the media outlet of the Oligarchy: all rightwing ads or all inane advertising, all the time...



I haven't listened to Rush lately, because it's always the same: he screens all the calls, mostly only permitting those that agree with him, then he rants and rustles papers and thumps his desk.

[Christians4LessGvt]

[Michael Tee]

Abortion - retreat - taxes - no oil - Marxism - appeasement - regulate = bad change?

How 'bout:  women's control over their own bodies - observance of international law - making the rich pay - preserving the natural environment - fair redistribution - peaceful non-violent resolution of disputes - ending corporate rip-offs = GOOD CHANGE?

[Christians4LessGvt]

"ending corporate rip-offs = GOOD CHANGE?"

Michael like this?

ELECTION 2008
Obama tied to Iraqi government fraud?
Hundreds of millions in deals with candidate's associates

July 30, 2008
By Aaron Klein

Sen. Barack Obama's office engaged in six months of negotiations with a company controlled by convicted criminal Tony Rezko to lobby the U.S. government to push through a nixed $50 million contact to train Iraqi security personnel at a site in Chicago.

The contract was awarded to Rezko's company while Aiham Alsammarae, a long-time, close Rezko friend and a contributor to Obama's campaign, served as Iraq's U.S.-appointed electricity minister, the senator's office confirms.

Rezko was a major Obama fundraiser and associate for two decades.


(Antoin "Tony" Rezko)

Alsammarae also awarded another Rezko-controlled operation as part of a $150 million contract to construct a 250-megawatt electricity plant in Iraq.

Alsammarae later was arrested by Iraqi authorities for bilking the coalition government out of some $650 million. He was sprung from prison under questionable circumstances in 2006 and escaped from Iraq, where he is still wanted for questioning with regard to major financial crimes.

The information raises questions into the nature of Obama's relationship with multiple deals made by Iraq's Electricity Ministry while Alsammarae was in charge. Obama has ties to Alsammarae and to the recipients of several of the massive contracts Alsammarae handed out.

While he was the electric czar of Iraq for the Coalition Provisional Authority from mid-2003 until mid-2005, Alsammarae granted the $50 million contract to train Iraqis to guard electrical plants to Companion Security, a start-up reportedly controlled by Rezko, his partner Daniel Mahru and a front man, Daniel Frawley, a former Chicago policeman. Frawley has multiple civil court judgments against him for his alleged failure to pay millions in outstanding bills.


Aiham Alsammarae (PBS.org)
 
The plan was to fly about 150 Iraqis to a site in Illinois for security training, which reportedly would include the use of AK-47 machine guns.

Obama's office did not reply to repeated WND requests for comment. A working number could not be found for Frawley.

Alsammarae did not return WND calls left on his cell phone and at his voicemail at his KCI Consultants firm in Chicago.

The contract with Rezko's group was signed April 18, 2005, one month before Alsammarae left his governmental post.

But Iraq's new electricity minister aborted the deal, complaining the Companion contract was too expensive, according to a U.S. embassy official in Baghdad who spoke earlier this year to the Chicago Sun-Times.

In the spring of 2006, Frawley and his company reportedly reached out to Chicago politicians, including Obama and Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, to bring pressure to revive the deal, arguing the business would be good for the state.

Blagojevich's office and Illinois Homeland Security reportedly helped by offering an Army depot in Savanna in western Illinois as a site for Companion to conduct the Iraqi training.

Frawley then reportedly reached out to Obama, who in 2006 was a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, engaging in six months of dialogue petitioning the Illinois senator to write a letter introducing the Rezko-connected Companion company to senior Iraqi officials. Frawley met with Seamus Ahern, who runs Obama's Moline, Ill., office.

But Obama, who has denied doing political favors for Rezko, later claimed he did not know Rezko was involved with Companion.
Obama's office declined to help about the same time Rezko was indicted on charges of fraud.

Obama's spokesman Ben LaBolt said, "The Senate staff had two meetings, one conference call and sporadically e-mailed with representatives of Companion Security about their request for Sen. Obama to write a letter introducing the company to senior officials in the Iraqi government."

LaBolt said Obama declined to help in the Companion deal, because "that is not the kind of action Sen. Obama usually takes for individual companies, and our staff concluded on that basis to decline the requested assistance."

LaBolt claimed Obama was not aware of Rezko's connections to the security firm.

LaBolt did not explain how Frawley could have survived the routine vetting of a petitioner by the U.S. Senate office staff when it was a matter of public record that his company was controlled by Rezko.

The nixed Iraqi government deal opens questions into the nature of Obama's relationship with agreements made by various associates with Iraq's Electricity Ministry while Alsammarae was in charge. Obama has ties to both Alsammarae and to the recipients of several of the massive contracts he handed out.

Alsammarae, a dual Iraqi-U.S. citizen, arrived in U.S. in 1976 and currently lives in Chicago and travels frequently to Amman, Jordan, where he maintains a residence despite still being wanted in Iraq.

Alsammarae has described himself as a close friend to Rezko, a former top confidante and fundraiser for Obama. Alsammarae and Rezko had been friends for nearly 30 years, since the two were classmates at the Illinois Institute of Technology.

WND reported Alsammarae posted more than one-third of Rezko's jail bond earlier this year, putting up as surety his $1.9 million Chicago home and two other properties.

Alsammarae contributed the maximum allowable donation of $2,300 to Obama's campaign, sending money six times in January, February and March. Obama donated the funds to charity in April, only after Alsammarae posted bond for Rezko.

As electricity minister, Alsammarae not only granted a Rezko firm the $50 million security training contract but also approved a contract with another Rezko company, Rezmar, to construct a 250-megawatt plant in the Kurdistani city of Chamchamal. That contract was granted to both Rezmar and the London-based General Mediterranean Holdings, which is headed by British billionaire Nadhmi Auchi, who was also involved in a large real estate deal in Chicago with Rezko and others around Obama.

Auchi, a former Baathist who left Iraq in 1979, was convicted in 2003 in a French court of corruption in an oil deal that stretched back to the Saddam Hussein regime. Auchi denies the charges.

Auchi could not be reached for comment

In another connection to Obama, when Alsammarae was jailed in Iraq in 2006, his Chicago-based family reportedly contacted Obama's U.S. Senate office for information. Obama's office passed a written request to the State Department about Alsammarae Oct. 16, 2006, and received a reply from the U.S. consul in Iraq about a week later. The reply was forwarded by Obama's staff to Alsammarae's daughter.

It wasn't immediately clear how Alsammarae landed his electricity ministry job. He was an outspoken critic of the U.S. military campaign in Iraq and publicly has supported Hussein.

In August 2000, Alsammarae, a board member of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, appeared in Washington alongside celebrities such as Martin Sheen and British politician George Galloway at a demonstration against U.N. sanctions on Saddam's regime.

Even as late as last month, Alsammarae delivered a press conference stating he hoped the insurgency in Iraq "would continue [against U.S. occupation] and avenges the Iraqi people."

American political insiders suggest Alsammarae received major insider help in securing his U.S.-brokered Iraqi government position. Unconfirmed reports point to Alsammarae's previous Baathist background as being a factor in his elevated status in post-Saddam Iraq.

Alammarae was accused in a federal filing during the Rezko federal corruption trial of being the recipient of a $1 million bribe from Rezko to deliver the original Companion deal. No charges have yet been filed, though the accuser is Daniel Mahru, the former partner in the Companion deal.

Alsammarae was the only cabinet-level Iraqi official to be convicted and jailed for misusing money during his time in office. In April, Alsammarae made an appearance on CBS's "60 Minutes" to defend his troubled conduct in Iraq and in the U.S.

An Interpol warrant for his arrest, issued in 2007 at the request of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki's government, was taken down after Alsammarae was forgiven for some parts of his conduct by an Iraqi legislative initiative, according to Arabic-language Iraqi criminal court documents obtained by WND and translated into English. Alsammarae has been warned by the Maliki government not to return to Iraq. Other charges are still pending, and Alsammarae has been warned by the Maliki government not to return to Iraq.

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=70972

[_JS]

You've got him now CU4.

I think Obama had better quit.

Hey, we haven't been updated on the War with Iran in a while. Last I heard the birds were being fueled and preparing to fly. What's up?

[Michael Tee]

Rezko, even as a fraud artist, is really small potatoes compared with the Republican big boys, but if he's all ya got, sure, run with it.  Personally, I think individuals always will try to rip off the government regardless of party affiliation, but THAT was never the issue - - your cartoon showed "Regulate," so the issue was really regulation of industry, rather than preventing individual scams.

In the regulation of industry, clearly you prefer an unregulated or self-regulated industry, be it food processing, automobile manufacturing, drugs and chemicals to be as free as possible, where history teaches that huge damage has been done to human health and welfare in the result.  Obama proposes tough government regulators to keep those crooks in line, you want 'em to have a free hand (which toothless self-regulation would accomplish) - - well, fine, let the public decide.  Do they need government protection from corporate America to prevent future Enrons, future coal mine collapses, future airline crashes, etc., or do they want the corporations left alone?

[Christians4LessGvt]

[Christians4LessGvt]

"Hey, we haven't been updated on the War with Iran in a while.
Last I heard the birds were being fueled and preparing to fly. What's up?"

The "latest"?
Well JS I guess the "latest" is like I posted in another thread today
that Obama is warning Congressional Democrats that Israel will
attack Iran if the sanctions dont work.
(as if sanctions were ever were going to work...lol....sanctions dont work on IslamoNazis)

And this:

US X-Band radar for early Iranian missile detection,
but no US involvement in any Israeli attack
DEBKAfile Special Report

July 30, 2008, 6:37 PM (GMT+02:00)

(US FBX radar)

The United States agreed to link Israel up to two advanced missile detection systems against potential attack by a nuclear-armed Iran, Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak said Tuesday night, July 30, at the end of his Washington talks. But US officials made it clear that, while prepared to help Israel defend itself against Iranian missile retaliation, they are determined not to be involved in any Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear sites.

DEBKAfile's military sources report that Washington would deliver within six months "before the new US administration arrives in January", a powerful forward-based X-band FBX-T radar. Increased access to its Defense Support Program (DSP) satellites, which spot missile launches, would take longer.

By putting a time frame around delivery, the Bush administration holds off a possible Israeli attack on Iran for as long as possible.

Barak's talks with Vice President Dick Cheney, defense secretary Robert Gates and secretary of state Condoleezza Rice ended in agreement for Washington to deliver:

1.The transportable FBX-T radar system built by Raytheon Co. which, by providing early and accurate target-tracing and signature data, enlarges the effective battle space of missile interceptors. US officials say it can track an object the size of a baseball from about 4,700 km, and can be launched from air, sea or land.

It would allow the Israeli Arrow anti-missile system to engage an incoming Iranian Shehab-3 ballistic missile about halfway through its estimated 11-minute flight. This would give a potentially targeted Israeli population five minutes to prepare for an Iranian missile hit. This would make up for the deficiency of Arrow?s Green Pine radar, which can detect a missile launch in Iran only after it enters the atmosphere on its way to its Israeli target.

2. Increased access to the US Defense Support System (DSP) satellites, which spot missile launches, would help Israel cover the first 5.5 minutes of a Shehab is firing.

This access has hitherto been provided as per request - such as last September for the Israeli strike against Syria's nuclear facility.- rather than on a constant basis.

DEBKAfile's sources note that this access continues to be hedged around by the need in every case for lengthy discussion on whether it is applicable to a given military contingency. It is therefore unlikely to be available before the next president enters the White House and will then be subject to his confirmation. Here too, the Bush administration is stretching out the time table for an Israeli attack well into the future.

3. A US consent in principle to the upgrading of the Israeli, largely American-funded Arrow. The projected Arrow III would be capable of shooting down attacking missiles at greater atmospheric heights than the present version as a safeguard against nuclear fallout. It was not clear whether the administration means to grant Israel the required technology or replace the Arrow with American systems.

The upshot of the Israeli defense minister's mission to Washington for a boost to Israel's military capability for a possible preemptive attack on a pre-nuclear-armed Iran was therefore the promise of hardware to give Israel more time to defend itself against Iranian missile reprisals.

[Plane]

Rezko, even as a fraud artist, is really small potatoes compared with the Republican big boys, but if he's all ya got, sure, run with it.  Personally, I think individuals always will try to rip off the government regardless of party affiliation, but THAT was never the issue - - your cartoon showed "Regulate," so the issue was really regulation of industry, rather than preventing individual scams.

In the regulation of industry, clearly you prefer an unregulated or self-regulated industry, be it food processing, automobile manufacturing, drugs and chemicals to be as free as possible, where history teaches that huge damage has been done to human health and welfare in the result.  Obama proposes tough government regulators to keep those crooks in line, you want 'em to have a free hand (which toothless self-regulation would accomplish) - - well, fine, let the public decide.  Do they need government protection from corporate America to prevent future Enrons, future coal mine collapses, future airline crashes, etc., or do they want the corporations left alone?

If I understand you right , Obama would be for greater regulation , which he would of course ignore?

[Xavier_Onassis]

The modern Republican approach is to pass harsh laws, but then to claim that the government cannot afford to staff the agency with enough enforcers. So you declare a twenty-year sentence to be appropriate for clear-cutting a national forest, or price fixing or denying workers the right to organize under the NLRB, and you hire one person to investigate all of this in the entire agency.

The other Republican approach is to appoint a rabid fundamentalist who believes that Jesus is returning next Thursday, thus negating any reason to prosecute the clear-cutter, or someone who believes that it is the duty of every business executive to seek the highest profits and pay the lowest wages to deal with the price fixers and labor law violators.

That way you can say you have the laws on the book BUT this particular case was a rare exception. After a dozen years or so, it will result that all cases were similarly rare exceptions.

This is what happens when fools, bumpkins, yokels, hicks and rubes elect people to government who believe that government is the problem.

When you correctly identify the bumpkins, yokels, hicks and rubes as bumpkins, yokels, hicks and rubes, then you can accuse those who have identifying said individuals as "elitist", because the average guy on the street does not have the savvy to recognize either the crooks or the fools, bumpkins, yokels, hicks and rubes who elected them.

In the words of the Late Senator Roman Hruska (REpublican (what else?) or Nebraska), we need mediocre people in office to represent the majority of voters, who are also mediocre.

It's sort of like the Holy Mother Church saying that GOD will take care of the priestly sodomizers of altarboys, even if the Bishop did not punish them.

Eventually this ceases to work, when the national industries also stress the mediocre, and foreigners cease to follow the trend. People will drive Chevettes, Cutlasses, Regals and Torinos for a while, but then they notice that their neighbor who bought a Corolla or a Sentra got it for less and it still hasn't spent any time in the shop.

[Michael Tee]

<<It would allow the Israeli Arrow anti-missile system to engage an incoming Iranian Shehab-3 ballistic missile about halfway through its estimated 11-minute flight. This would give a potentially targeted Israeli population five minutes to prepare for an Iranian missile hit. This would make up for the deficiency of Arrow?s Green Pine radar, which can detect a missile launch in Iran only after it enters the atmosphere on its way to its Israeli target.>>

That's great.  Now what do they do if it's launched from closer to home, like let's say Lebanon or Gaza? 

[Michael Tee]

<<If I understand you right , Obama would be for greater regulation , which he would of course ignore?>>

Hopefully for greater regulation, but why would he "of course" ignore it?  He'd have to be as corrupt as the Republicans to do that.

[Plane]

<<If I understand you right , Obama would be for greater regulation , which he would of course ignore?>>

Hopefully for greater regulation, but why would he "of course" ignore it?  He'd have to be as corrupt as the Republicans to do that.

 

Personally, I think individuals always will try to rip off the government regardless of party affiliation, ...

[Michael Tee]

The two quotes aren't incompatible.  Businessmen of both parties will always try to max out their bottom line, often by ripping off the government.  Of the two parties, IMHO, the Republicans when in power have been much more willing than the Democrats to look the other way for their friends.